Conversations
by Gerenuk
Summary: There are several things that Remus Lupin would rather not discuss.


**Summary:** There are several things that Remus Lupin would rather not discuss.

* * *

 **1\. Lily Evans**

"Should I assume you're not talking to me either?" Lily asks, her books abandoned on the empty bed next to his.

Remus looks at her wearily, his eyes dark with shadow and bruising. It's a fair question. She has been sat with him for almost an hour.

"Shouldn't you be in potions?" his voice is hoarse, staccato silences creeping into words.

She purses his lips, her eyes tracing across his heavily bandaged arms, taking in the stained strip of gauze pressed high on his chest. He wonders how she will take his answer. Wonders how he wants her to.

Lily shrugs lightly, answers simply. "Slughorn likes me."

Slughorn likes Lily and is afraid of Remus. He is unfailingly polite, always patient when Remus fails to grasp the basics of his subject, but he is sure to keep enough distance to draw a wand. He wonders if other teachers will now do the same.

He is fifteen years old. He has one less friend that he had two days ago. He wonders how many more he will lose.

"Potter is very upset you know."

"You don't like James."

"I don't. But it turns out he's even more annoying without his friends than he is with them." She hesitates, rubbing her hand across her wrist where the bandages crisscross his. "Severus implied a prank went wrong."

He closes his eyes. His skin itches, burns hot across wounds that will never quite heal. Lily wraps her hand around his two unbound fingers. He supposes an explanation close to the truth is at least better than the truth.

"Black has the detentions. Want me to find reasons to throw Potter and Pettigrew in with him?"

His stomach tightens. He doesn't want to talk to James or Peter, but he doesn't want them to talk to Sirius either.

"Lily Evans abusing her prefect powers?"

"I'm already skipping class."

"No detentions," he says quietly. "Tell them – tell them they can visit. James and Peter."

He is fifteen years old. He has one less friend than he had two days ago. But he still has friends.

* * *

 **2\. Lyall Lupin**

"Are we ever going to talk about it?"

His father stands in the kitchen doorway, wringing his hands. He doesn't say anything more, waits out the quiet. It's been quiet for days. Remus lets his shoulders rise and fall in answer, turns his eyes back to the sink.

"You don't have to do that Remus, let me do it."

 _Then we can talk_. Remus silently adds the unspoken words to his father's offer. But washing up is not just a chore; it's the one he used to share with his mother. And he doesn't want to talk.

It is Christmas. He is sixteen years old and his mother is six months dead.

His father sighs audibly, shifts his slippered feet. Remus waits for him to leave, for the creak of the sofa. Instead his father pulls out a chair, sits at the table. His thumb nail drags through the grain of the wood, the sound at the edge of his hearing. Remus clenches his jaw, squirts more soap on the sponge.

The mugs sit draining on the rack, the plates dried and stacked on the shelf. Remus turns away from the sink. His father kicks out a chair.

"Your mother would want us to talk."

He bites back a reply; he is good at controlling himself. He has had to be. He has had to control himself since the age of six because his father had been unable to at thirty six.

He wonders how his mother had felt, learning that living with magic meant living with monsters.

When Remus replies he is quiet, measured. "I think Mam would have preferred it if you hadn't spoken at all."

The cut is deep, weighted by grief. His father drops his head to his hand and his gaze to the floor.

Hours later Remus lies curled up, pretending to sleep. His father sits on the floor, leaning back against the side of the bed. His breath smells faintly of whiskey.

"It made no difference to your mother. It made no difference to me. You might think it did – maybe I even expected it to – but it didn't. We loved you just the same, Remus." His voice is slurred, a worn down Yorkshire accent pushing back against welsh vowels. "I'm sorry."

Remus waits until his father's breathing deepens, evens out in sleep. "I'm sorry too." He whispers.

He is sixteen years old and his mother is six months dead. But he still has his father, and his father still has him.

* * *

 **3\. Minerva McGonagall**

"Do you ever talk about them?" she asks him over tea.

He takes time to add sugar to the china cup, stirring it slowly. Professor McGonagall is the fourth member of the Order he has seen in as many weeks. A chance meeting with Hagrid in Knockturn Alley had been followed (rather less spontaneously) by various offers of odd jobs and square meals. He has de-gnomed Dedalus Diggle's garden, cleared an attic room of doxies for Emmeline Vance, and spent a rather frustrating morning with Arabella Figg attempting to feed potions to kneazles. He has not spoken of James and Lily or of Peter once.

"People rarely wish to talk of the war."

She does not miss his evasion. "Your friends are not the war, Remus."

"Their names are rather inextricably bound with it."

"And to a flair for charms, quidditch, and trouble, to my memory at least."

He sips his tea slowly. He doesn't want to think of school. He cannot think of Lily's flair for charms without thinking of Sirius adding footsteps to a map; he cannot think of James flying, poised to throw the quaffle, without thinking of Sirius at his side beating away bludgers. When he thinks of Peter, laying misdirected clues for Filch to find, he cannot help but think of Sirius, laughing raucously at their plans.

He is twenty five years old and he cannot think of school without thinking of the murderer who once was his friend.

"He was not always what he became you know."

It is not the first time he has suspected Minerva McGonagall of mind reading. It is perhaps the first time he has suspected her of being wrong; if he cannot see when Black changed, maybe he never did.

"One day Harry will want to hear of them." She offers a biscuit to soften the blow. "It may be easier if you have spoken of them before."

He thinks of Harry often. He smiles a little. "Arabella says he looks like them, says he runs his hand through his hair a lot." His smile drops. "She doesn't think his family are kind to him."

Lily was always kind. It is painful to think that Harry is being raised by her sister, who is not.

"You wanted to teach." McGonagall places her cup upon the small table beside her chair, watches him shrewdly. "I think you might be an excellent teacher. A kind teacher."

He meets her eyes. "I'd like that."

He is twenty five years old and he cannot think of school without thinking of the murderer who once was his friend. But now he thinks of teaching, and of Harry too.

* * *

 **4\. Sirius Black**

"You don't want to talk about it do you?"

Remus lifts his head from the sofa. Sirius sits in the threshold between the living room and the bedroom, a shadow in the darkness. The glowing hands of the clock show it is early. Too early. Sirius has been staying with him for almost a week. After six restless nights Remus is beginning to regret insisting he take the bed.

He is thirty four years old and his best friend is a fugitive who will not let him sleep.

Remus shifts, pushes the pillow against the armrest and sits up.

Sirius takes his movement as invitation, padding towards the sofa and crouching again, knees to chest, on the floor. His eyes are bright in stark sockets. Remus sighs.

"Harry is-"

"I don't mean Harry, Remus. I mean I want to talk about him, but you're not avoiding that are you?"

"I wasn't aware I was avoiding anything."

"Bullshit. You talk about Harry, and you'll talk about Lily, and James, and- and him. But you won't talk about why he was the secret keeper in the first place, you won't-"

"Because you didn't trust me," Remus interrupts evenly, "you thought I was the spy. I know; we spoke about it last year in the shack. I forgave you. And you forgave me for believing it was you all these years. What else is there to say?"

Sirius stares up at him, his hands in loose fists as he touches his thumbs to each of his fingers in turn. The sleeves of borrowed threadbare pyjamas fall across his palms.

"You can't just- you can't-"

Remus sits up fully, running a hand through his pillow-mussed hair. The blanket slips off his feet and he flinches at the chill of the bare floorboards.

"Come sit under the blanket will you? It's bloody freezing."

Sirius stands numbly, sitting obediently besides Remus and pulling the blanket around him. He looks small, child-like.

"You forgive me? Just like that?"

"You forgave me."

"You didn't do anything wrong. It was always... always me who did that."

Remus reaches for his hand beneath the blanket, threading their fingers together. He squeezes gently.

"Well, whoever was at fault, can we agree we've been punished enough now?"

Sirius blinks a few times and clings tightly. Remus feels his head drop to his shoulder, feels him nod softly.

He is thirty four years old and his best friend is a fugitive who will not let him sleep. But for the first time in thirteen years, he has a best friend.

* * *

 **5\. Nymphadora Tonks**

He watches Tonks as she sorts through newspaper cuttings, highlighting key passages with her wand and sorting them into messy piles. She bites her lip as she works, her free hand occasionally straying to stroke against her stomach. He sits opposite her, sharing the task.

Andromeda enters the dining room on her way out of the house, pressing a kiss against her daughter's head before muttering a cursory goodbye at him. Tonks, usually so quick to defend him from any perceived slight, continues silently with her reading.

He is thirty seven years old and, five days after he returned home to his wife, he struggles to prove he means it this time when he promises he will stay.

He has said he is sorry, explained he was worried, explained he was scared. But it is not enough - she was worried, and she was scared. He sleeps on the sofa, attempts small talk with her parents, and tries to back up his words with actions.

He makes her peppermint tea, cooks strange meals to satisfy her cravings, and kneels besides her during morning sickness, rubbing her back and offering water. It is, as Andromeda has pointed out scathingly, what he should have been doing all along.

Tonks stretches her arms above her head. "You ok? You look lost in thought."

He nods, reaches for her hand. She squeezes his fingers gently before pulling away.

"Lots of people," he says slowly, "have found out that I am a werewolf, but I don't think I've ever told anyone. In fact I don't think that I've ever really initiated an important conversation."

"I can understand-"

"-I've let it become a habit. I've found it easier to ignore things until other people confront me – not just about my lycanthropy, but other problems too - with my friends, with my parents, and with you; most importantly with you." He swallows hard. "When you first told me you loved me, I'd loved you for months. When we were apart that year, you refused to give up on me even when I was giving up on myself. And now, when you told me you were pregnant and I – I left – I came back wanting you to tell me how to fix what I'd broken."

He brushes his hand across his eyes, takes a deep breath.

"Dora, I want to talk to you. I want to tell you everything. I want to plan our lives, our family. Dora, can we talk?"

He is thirty seven years old, he loves his wife and their unborn child, and he is determined to prove to them that he means it this time when he promises he will stay.

* * *

 **AN:** Hope you liked it - all feedback welcomed!


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